Dean's World

Israel, Palestinians, Lebanon—A War among Democracies?

Rudy Rummel

There is considerable violence -- what some are calling a war -- between the democratically elected Hamas Palestinian government and democratic Israel; and Israel is engaged in a war with Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon, which apparently had a democratic election in May, 2005. Is this a falsification of the democratic peace theory that democracies don't make war on each other?

(Continued here)

Related Posts (on one page):

A Blog Seminar On The Democratic Peace
Answering Questions on the Democratic Peace
Israel, Palestinians, Lebanon—A War among Democracies?

Posted by Rudy Rummel | Permalink | Technorati Trackbacks

(link)

Arnold Harris (mail):

Professor Rummel, how many times do you have to be reminded that the most democratic german government of the Weimar republic in the early 1930s successively voted Adolf Hitler and his Nazionalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei a continually growing number of seats in the Reichstag, until the president of the republic, von Hindenburg, could be induced to appoint Hitler reichskanzler, resulting within a few weeks to a totalitarian dictatorship that would not be ended except by 12 years of tyranny, war, mass murder and mass destruction on the most colossal scale in history?

The fact is, autocracies more frequently stabilize unstable cultures or multi-cultural countries. Tito's Jugoslavia was a good example. And much as I hate to say it, so was Saddam's Iraq.

Pull away the autocracy or dictatorship, and all too frequently, all they -- and us -- get in the end is civil war and the kind of military adventurism we have been witnessing over a quarter-century by this armed, irresponsible religious army of fanatics maintained by Iran and Syria in eastern and southern Lebanon.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

7.26.2006 11:23pm

(link)

Arnold Harris (mail):

"us -- get" is pretty damned bad grammar. Mark it down to a tired pair of eyes.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

7.26.2006 11:25pm

(link)

Fred Schoeneman (mail) (www):

Rudy,

I think this may be a forest for the trees issue. For either Lebanon or Palestine to be considered democratic state, they must actually be states. They must exhibit the most important characteristics of a state, which are security and control. Lebanon is a failed state, as is Palestine, evidenced by their inability to control minority groups, paramilitaries and militias. Unless I'm missing something, whether or not Hamas was democratically elected has no bearing here.

Regards,

F

7.26.2006 11:48pm

(link)

John_B (mail) (www):

Both Lebanon and the Palestinian entity are, at best, transitioning to democracy. The rule may not apply to transitional democracies.

7.27.2006 12:52am

(link)

Ronald Coleman (mail) (www):

Israel's war is with Hizbollah. Unfortunately, it's in Lebanon, in violation of international law. Hezbollah is not a state nor is it a democracy.

Palestine is not a state, but I suppose it is a sort of democratic entity, so I'll give you that one.

7.27.2006 1:25am

(link)

Dean Esmay:

Hitler's party won a controlling minority, but then used several illegitimate means to subvert the government and turn Hitler into a dictator with absolute control.

Yet now, Germany is a pluralist liberal democracy. Did its culture become monolithic in the last 60 years?

There are numerous eamples of multi-lingual, multi-ethnic democracies which are quite successful.

7.27.2006 2:47am

(link)

Cybrludite (mail) (www):

Any place where assassination is a political tool is not a functioning democracy, no matter how many elections they hold.

7.27.2006 3:42am

(link)

Mike "Veeshir" Fisher (mail):

Parts of Lebanon might have actual, democratically elected leaders. But in the Hezbollah areas, your life was worth crap if you opposed their members. I sincerely doubt there were many people willing to run against a murderous opponent and I also doubt many people were willing to vote against murderous, terrorist types as they could find out who voted for whom.

So no, it's not democracy against democracy. Ditto the Palestinians. When the slate of candidates is decided by violent means, or the threat of violent means, that's not democracy. That's why Iran wouldn't be a democracy even if the president had some power.

7.27.2006 9:15am

(link)

Ken Hall (www):

Veeshir has it right. The true test of the democratic peace theory won't come until there are only democratic states. Human nature being what it is, I confess I think that somehow, war will find a way.

7.27.2006 11:29am

(link)

Dave Schuler (mail) (www):

When the political parties are armed factions, it's not a democratic election.

7.27.2006 1:15pm

(link)

Jimmy the Dhimmi (mail) (www):

Don't forget the U.S. civil war. The secession went about in a democratic fashion. The majority of Southerners wanted to secede, and fight if they had too.

7.28.2006 2:35pm